


Names

by Ydnam



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 10:47:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ydnam/pseuds/Ydnam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After tumbling through the portal Baelfire slowly realizes his papa really isn't coming after him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Names

Baelfire tumbled out of the portal unconscious. When he woke he found himself in woods not terribly unlike those he had left behind. He had gone through something, he knew that much. Living with Papa, now that Papa was the way he was, had given him a sense of magic. He knew it when he felt it. There had been magic and now there wasn’t any and he was in the woods and he was alone. He was alone because Papa had let him go. Papa had broken the deal. 

So he sat. He waited. He wept. He was lost and alone and cold and frightened and his father had let him go because he was too afraid to come with him. Too afraid to let go of the magic that had saved and ruined them all at once.

He waited that whole first day and into the night. He walked around some, looking for anything that might seem familiar, but never venturing far from the spot where he had woken. Papa would come for him. He was sure of it. Papa was a coward but Papa loved him. Papa loved him more than anything else in the world. He wouldn’t abandon him forever if he could help it. And he had more magic than anyone else. Papa would find him. 

It was loud in this world. There were great rumbling noises and roars that made him think of dragons though he had never seen one. Bangs and horrible high-pitched wails that sounded like nothing he had ever heard before. 

When it grew dark he began to grow more concerned. Papa should have come by now. There were lights to be seen in the distance. Not fires, and not fairy lights, something new. He wanted to go closer to see what they were but he thought he should stay. Surely Papa wouldn’t be long now. He had to be coming.

He meant to stay awake and watch for Papa because Papa had to be coming for him somehow. The fairy had said the bean was the only way to get here but Papa had so much magic. Papa would find another way and he would be here soon. And when he came Bae would go home with him if that meant he could still have his Papa, even if that meant Papa’s curse might never be broken. Eventually the tears and the cold and the exhaustion overcame his best efforts and he fell asleep.

When he woke for the second time in this new world, shivering and miserable and huddled in his cloak, Baelfire knew. His papa wasn’t coming for him. 

He could be brave even if his papa couldn’t. He would survive this. Maybe someday Papa would come. Maybe someday Bae could even forgive him for letting go. For now he had a new world to learn and he couldn’t do that hiding here in these woods. He had to get up and he had to leave and he had to find shelter and people and food. 

Papa had been so proud of him when he learned his letters. They had practiced scratching letters in the dirt with a stick or a rock and once Bae had painstakingly carved his name into a tree trunk. It had taken him a very long time because he wanted it to be perfect. He had showed it to Papa and Papa had smiled and ruffled his hair.

There was no one to show his handiwork to this time but he carved the letters carefully just the same. Perhaps, someday, somehow, this would help Papa find him. Names had power and he would leave his here. Just in case. 

Later, when he found people, Baelfire told them his name was that of a boy who had died in the Ogre War. It was the first lie he told in his new world. There would be other lies, other names, and worse than lies. Baelfire had been a good boy. An honest boy. But he wasn’t Baelfire any more.


End file.
